So, I've read the first three books in this series, and it's not all that bad. I mainly picked them up because they were being offered for free in the form of a nook book on the Barnes and Noble website, so I thought "hey, why not?"
I never expect much from anything classified as YA; I think I never picked the genre at the appropriate time, so I never acquired the taste for the tone that's presented in most books that fall into this category.
I feel like the authors skills improved throughout the course of these three books, though, and I'm sure it gets better from here on out - however, since I'm trying to be a little more careful of what I spend, I won't be buying the other 7+ books in this series.
All in all, it's a good, fairly mindless read, not bad by any means but also not spectacular. I'll definitely consider reading some more of this authors work in the future.